The Children s Learning

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1 MAIDENHEAD NURSERY SCHOOL NEWSLETTER Welcome back to the second half of the Autumn Term. We hope that you all had a super half term holiday break. The children have embraced the cold weather recently and it has led to lots of questions and explorations involving ice. We discovered some ice in the waterway on Monday morning and the children were very interested in how it got there. Since then we have experimented with freezing leaves, oranges and flowers in blocks of ice. The children have so far worked out that smashing the ice is a very effective way of getting to its contents as well as rubbing it and pouring water onto it to melt it. first returned to nurse- many ways. To start we used them in our The Autumn leaves looked so beautiful when we ry and we have enjoyed playing with them in so with we transported them in wheelbarrows, then mud kitchen recipes. The children have made pictures with them (see Henry s picture) and swept them into a massive pile which we have enjoyed throwing in the air and jumping into! Edgar had the good idea to make a leaf man, you might have seen him in the garden. November 2016 The Children s Learning The Teacher s Learning On Monday 31st October staff had a training day. We invited an external trainer in for the day who gave us a wonderful refresher on early brain development and it s impact on children s behaviour. We hope to share some of this information with you through parent workshops and/or information leaflets as it really helps to understand and appreciate the challenges of being 2 4 years old!!

2 Staffing News We are able to officially confirm to parents the lovely news that Miss O Regan is pregnant and is expecting a baby boy at the beginning of April. We will be planning a replacement key person for Purple group in the new year and will let parents know as soon as possible to ensure a smooth transition for all the children and families. Children in Need We are supporting Children in Need on Friday 18th November. Children will be taking part in spotty activities and challenges. To be even more we would love it if children could dress up in spotty clothes. Please bring in a small donation to decorate our spotty snake to help disadvantaged children throughout the UK. Thank you for your support in helping us to raise money for a very worthy cause. A reminder and a request If children suffer from a stomach bug - diarrhoea or vomiting, the local Health Authority state that they should not return to School/Nursery until they have been symptom free for 48 hours. Please may we ask for any spare baubles you might have at home to be brought into Nursery? As you may know we use collections of objects a lot with the children to support their maths and language skills and encourage deep level thinking. As many different sizes, colours and materials as possible would be brilliant, thank you. Come and Play date! We hope you enjoyed the Come and Play session this week with the literacy focus. We hope that you find the leaflets helpful in understanding how children learn literacy skills at a young age and what you can do to support them at home. Unfortunately I made an error with date of the next Come and Play session in the last newsletter. It is on Monday 23rd January 2017 (we don t have another one this month) between 8.45 and 10 am and to 1.30pm. Sorry!!

3 Dates for your Diary Thursday 17th November - Zoolab visits nursery today. Children will have the opportunity to learn about and handle a range of animals. Friday 18th November - Fundraising for Children in Need. Tuesday 6th December am - Christmas sing-alongs Red and Yellow group. Details to follow. Wednesday 7th December am - Christmas sing-alongs Blue, Purple and Green group. Details to follow. Wednesday 7th December pm pm Christmas sing-alongs all afternoon groups. Details to follow. Friday 9th December - Nursery trip to Norden Farm theatre (3-4 year old children only). Nursery is closed all day today. Theatre trip is in the afternoon. Wednesday 14th December - Santa s grotto visiting! Friday 16th December - Last day for additional sessions and lunch sessions. Monday 19th December - Nursery is closed this morning. Afternoon party for those children that attend nursery in the afternoon 12.30pm to 3.30pm. Tuesday 20th December - Morning party for those children that attend nursery in the morning am to am. There is no lunch club or afternoon session today. Nursery closes at 11.45am for the Christmas holidays. Wednesday 4th January - NURSERY CLOSED - STAFF TRAINING DAY Thursday 5th January - NURSERY CLOSED. Home visits for new children Friday 6th January - NURSERY CLOSED. New entrants sessions only. Monday 9th January - ALL CHILDREN RETURN TO NURSERY. THANK YOU! A BIG THANK YOU to Gareth Campbell (Patrick's Daddy) who very kindly supplied us with bark to fill up the climbing frame area. It was great news that his company Berkshire Gardening and Design were able to help in this way as it means we can spend more of our budget on play resources for the children.

4 Speech technique of the month In order to support the children s speech, language and communication development we are focusing on one speech technique per month. These have been advised by Speech and Language Therapists and we would like you to support these techniques in the home when possible. This month s speech technique is to think about conditions for listening. Children need quiet and cosy areas for speaking and listening make sure that background noise from the TV etc. is reduced to a minimum whenever possible. School admissions If your child is 4 years old on or before 31st August 2017 you are eligible to apply for a full time school place commencing September RBWM residents should apply via the following website: Applications need to be received by 16th January Should you wish to defer your child s entry into school please speak to us asap, however you should still complete the school application by the deadline. Support your Child s Learning at Home These suggested activities would fit in well with the things we are doing in nursery this term : Please help your child to recognise their coat and encourage them to have a go at putting it on. Start by aiming at supporting them to put one arm into a sleeve and build up from there, giving lots of praise for having a go. If they can already put it on perhaps they could practise doing it up. This will help them to develop their confidence and self help skills at nursery. Please show your child how to use a tissue and allow them to practise blowing their nose when they need to. We have lots of tissues around nursery for the children to use and children need to be directly taught this skill. Share non-fiction books about animals - the more unusual the better. See if you can find any suitable you tube clips that show the lives and habitats of your child s favourite wild animal.

5 Would you like to become a parent governor? We are currently looking for Governors to join the Governing Body of our Federation of Nursery Schools (Cookham, Maidenhead and The Lawns) to represent the parent body of The Lawns Nursery School. Do you think you could be that person? What skills might you be able to offer our Governing Body? Skills or experience in any of the following areas are of particular interest to us Financial management Human resources PR and marketing ICT Law Health and safety What you can expect from being a Parent Governor: Involvement in the direction and focus of children's development and learning at nursery school An opportunity to work with a committed team of individuals to promote positive outcomes for every child across our Federation. No pay but lots of `job satisfaction'! Please vote again!! We have made an application to RBWM for a grant to improve our outdoor area. We have the possibility of securing 5000 if we get enough votes to finish in the top 5. Please vote The Lawns Nursery School on the following link: www3.rbwm.gov.uk/info/200125/budgets_spending_and_performance/1119/schools_parti cipatory_budget/4 Please also ask family and friends to do the same. We will send reminders out via so you are able to share the link. You can vote as many times as you like! PARENT PARTNERSHIP We hope new parents welcomed the opportunity to talk about the progress your child has already made at Nursery with their key person recently. It s a wonderful celebration of how well they are doing. We hope that you also found the guidance on how to support your child s learning at home useful. Please always speak to us if you have any worries or concerns and also come in and help out for a session - parents are very welcome. There is a sign up sheet on the door to the first classroom.